About Kai Commitment

Kai Commitment is an agreement between leading food sector businesses designed to reduce food waste and related emissions across Aotearoa New Zealand’s food supply chain.

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The framework

The Kai Commitment programme is based on the Target Measure Act framework, which is internationally recognised as a best practice approach for reducing food waste. The framework encourages accountability, data-driven decisions, and meaningful action.

Target: Setting clear goals for waste reduction provides businesses with specific goals to work towards.

Measure: By tracking waste data, companies gain insights into waste patterns, identify hotspots, and benchmark progress.

Act: With data in hand, businesses can implement targeted interventions to reduce waste efficiently and effectively

In New Zealand, we have added Collaborate to the framework in recognition that tackling food waste often requires collaboration across supply chains. This programme also provides invaluable opportunities to collaborate in a pre-competitive setting with other Kai Commitment signatories to work on shared food waste challenges.

Kai Commitment Signatories are supported to set a Food Waste Action Plan (FWAP) to:

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Set a reduction target to create ambition
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Measure food waste (using international best practice) to understand the problem and inform solutions
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Take action to reduce food waste through better design, improved efficiency and innovate for new ways to donate good food or reuse food waste
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Lead consumers, staff and supply chain partners to waste less food; create impact at scale through collective reporting and industry collaborative activities
Target, Measure, Act, Collaborate framework

Each Food Waste Action Plan is delivered and reviewed annually with support from the Kai Commitment team.

The roadmap

Signatories commit to measure food waste, set a reduction target and design an action plan for reduction. The Kai Commitment phase 1 will run for three years. Your business can join at any time.

Kai Commitment Roadmap 2022-2025: 2022 – Design; Launch & Engage; 2023 – Enact; Collaborate; 2024 – Grow; 2025 – Transform

The Signatory journey

The Kai Commitment is designed to ease your business into the practice of measuring food waste, analysing the results and setting actions for food waste reduction. 

The framework can be paced to suit your business and internal timeframes but generally will involve an annual cycle of setting food waste measurement, reporting and reduction activities and a timetable for delivery and review.

Collaborative action

The Kai Commitment project team will help Signatories to establish the Target, Measure, Act framework within their business. Signatories will also be invited to attend huis to scope and initiate a programme of collaborative activity, receive insights and meet each other.

Annual, anonymised reporting

This will feed into an annualised anonymised report of aggregate food waste that has been measured and report on progress of the programme.

For producers, manufacturers, preparers or retailers of food